by Michael Griffin Hollywood.com
The final scene of the fifth season
of Justified ended as it began: at night, with a Crowder on the Harlan
County bridge that has played home to so many illicit activities. This time, it
was Ava Crowder (Joelle Carter),
and she was there for an task that surely ate at her soul — being a CI for
Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant).
It was Givens who was able to pull her out of her predicament at the
penitentiary and he wanted her to show her gratitude by gathering information
to help the Marshal's Office put away Boyd for at least the next 50 years.
With that sequence of events, the
show left us no room for error for what will transpire in the final season.
Boyd, who has already had a number of bad guys out gunning for him, is going to
be feeling the squeeze of the law. And that group will be led by Givens, who
used to work in the mines with Boyd a lifetime ago, before the two went on
very, very divergent paths. This would likely put an end to the occasional
alliance that exists between the two and will probably have Boyd reconsidering
his decision in the second season to save Raylan from being whacked open like a
pinata by Dickie Bennett (Jeremy Davies).
If they are smart (and Graham Yost
and his crew have proven themselves to be near Mensa-level geniuses at crafting
some of the most compelling television out there), the showrunners will spend
the final season of Justified back in the hands of the Core 3:
Givens, Ava and Boyd — the meat of the show from its early days.
There have overarching villains in
nearly every season of Justified but the first. The only villain
needed for this final go-'round is Boyd. That way, the focus can be on those
central characters, relegating some other favorites to satellite roles (like
Rachel Brooks and Tim Gutterson), the likes of Wynn Duffy and Katherine Hale to
occasional components of the story, and the newly retired Art Mullen to a cameo
appearance or two.
We might even go so far as to predict
(or hope) that the final scene of the show somehow emulates the last moments of
the pilot, with Raylan shooting Boyd, but this time, with no reprieve. (For
those who don't know, Boyd was supposed to die in that pilot, like he did in
the short story "Fire In The Hole." However, Walton Goggins blew
everyone away with his performance and was granted a starring part.) However
the series ends, it needs to come right down to the relationship that made the
program so compelling in the first place. This is a show about Raylan and his
toxic roots, and nobody better exemplifies those roots than Boyd.
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